Cambridge Botanic Gardens 1

Botanic Gardens in Cambridge are at their best as regards spring flowers at the moment and looked extra good in the morning sunshine after overnight rain. I was using an old film camera 50 mm lens which gives very soft backgrounds for some of the shots and the modern 90mm macro for the rest.

Winter Walk at Wimpole Estate

Very enjoyable walk in the sunshine at Wimpole Estate yesterday morning wih my full-spectrum camera.

Extending Paxton Lichen/Fungi List

An enjoyable walk round Heronry trail at Paxton yesterday in the sunshine spending some time in the scrubland near the Quarry photographing a few more lichens and fungi. The most interesting find for me was this bright pink lichenocolous fungus - Illosporiopsis christiansenii parasitic on Physcia tenella and sometimes also on Xanthoria parietina. It grows in and on the host lichen, feeding from it, degrading it, and eventually killing it. You can see in the second image bottom right the areas or sick or dead lichen of both species. I will add the ID sheet when completed.

Toft Churchyard Lichens

Today's post definitely a preliminary look at what is growing on the walls and gravestones in our village church. They were very difficult to photograph handheld in not very good light. I will try again with some type of lighting to get sharper images for ID, The summary image at the end shows the IDs that various apps suggested - further shoots and comparisons of images should confirm or not these first attempts and then to check with other sources.

Vases and Vessels

I got a bit obsessed with the various ancient pottery in the Fitzwilliam Museum and photographed several of the wonderfully inventive and elegant shapes as double exposures using the wall or floor to add texture. Here are 8 of them with a tryptic of three of the most colourful to start..